


Reach Out

by Amalia Kensington (amaliak01)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben Solo is a good dad, Doing his best, Domestic Fluff, Dreams and Nightmares, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Original Character(s), Post-Canon, Reylo Baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:07:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22855192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaliak01/pseuds/Amalia%20Kensington
Summary: “Reach out, down deep deep in your heart. What do you feel?”Ben Solo helps the person that he loves the most through a nightmare.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 30
Kudos: 187





	Reach Out

Someone was standing over him.

A decade at war had come with a lot of unfortunate reflexes and even though the last seven years had brought a new kind of life, Ben still reacts at the feeling of someone watching him sleep. 

Tensing his shoulder and shooting himself into an alert position, Ben’s eyes adjust to the dimness of the room and the person standing beside his bed, his hands already fisting ready for a fight.

“Daddy?”

Immediately he releases his tension, calming his heart rate as much as he could so his visitor wouldn’t notice. 

“Rhea? Are you alright?” 

In the dim light, her eyes were dark but full of tears and he sits up more fully in bed, swinging his legs over the side and placing his hands on her little shoulders. 

“I had a bad dream, Daddy. Can I get in with you?”

He scoops her up immediately, settling them into bed, wrapping his arms around her as she buries her little face into his neck, her tiny fists closing around his tunic. He feels the shudder go through her back as she releases a shaky sigh. 

His mind is whirling in a panic, his worst fears snarling at him from deep within, remembering all too well seemingly endless nights of nightmares and voices in his head, sometimes whispering lies and sometimes bringing pain.

The temptation to push into her little mind, root around for the thing that would bring terror to her mind and snuff it out was so great, he nearly starts to try. Almost as soon as he thinks of it, he remembers that he had sworn never to do such a thing, even for this. 

He takes a deep breath instead, wishing that Rey was not off-world for another week. “Do you want to talk about it, Hazelnut?”

She sniffles a bit before hesitatingly nodding. 

“I was lost and I was running, looking for you,” she begins. “But after a little while, I found you and Momma….but you didn’t see me, I couldn’t talk to you. I yelled and yelled but you never turned around, you never saw me.”

Her voice was so small as it tapers off to another sob, and his grip on her tightens. 

“Oh baby girl, it’s alright, it was just a dream,” he soothes, kissing the top of her head and rubbing her back. “It’s all over now.”

Ben doesn’t feel like the dream might be any more than just the normal nightmares of a child, remembering in that moment Mara, the pet baby ysalamir in Rhea’s room that was intended to keep her safe from any attempts of unseen Force-foes. 

Feeling relief, he focuses on getting Rhea more calm. “You know the truth, right Hazelnut? Mom and I will always hear you, always be here for you.”

Alarmingly, this seems to have the opposite effect.

“But..I don’t have the Force!” the little girl cries. “I’m not connected like you and Momma! How can you hear me if I don’t have the Force?”

The dawning realization hit him as to what was the real cause of this fear in his small daughter. When Rhea was born, he and Rey had realized that their daughter was not Force-sensitive. Ben had actually been relieved, thinking of the freedom that his little baby girl would have from all the weight of any type of legacy or galactic expectation that he and Rey both carried. 

But now that Rhea was five and starting to become a sponge of information and learning, he sees that being different from her parents is affecting her just in the same way it affected him at the same age. 

“Look at me, Rhea,” he said gently peeling her away from his chest so that he could look into her face. Her eyes were her mother’s dark hazel and he was so grateful that she’d also taken his mother’s nose. But seeing the matching map of moles on her face that belonged to him, he fleetingly wondered if her face would elongate as she got older, if her sandy hair would eventually darken. 

Her bottom lip quivers still but she meets his eyes steadily. 

“We will always be with you, Rhea,” he tells her seriously and with all the conviction he could muster. “Reach out, down deep deep in your heart. What do you feel?”

Rhea draws her eyebrows together, concentrating hard as she squeezes her eyes shut. 

“It’s warm, isn’t it? Warm but strong?” he prompts.

“Yes,” she replies eventually with a nod, bringing her hands to press against her chest. “It’s like...glowing.” She opens her eyes suddenly. “Is that the Force?” she asks in a whisper.

His heart fractures just a bit.

“It’s more than that,” he says quietly. “Stronger than the Force, stronger than anything else.”

He tucks a bit of her hair behind her ear. “It’s love.”

Rhea is trying to process the revelation and he takes one of her hands and presses it against his own heart. “Do you feel it?”

She pauses for a minute. “Yes.” She looks back up at him. “I feel it, Daddy.”

Another hand falls over hers, and Ben wonders when exactly the bond has activated. 

“Do you feel Momma’s love too?” he asks his child. 

“Yeah, I feel it,” Rhea answers, a smile pulling at her lips.   
“This is what has always been between us, and this is what will always be there, no matter how far away or for how long. I want you to always remember that. Promise me, Rhea.” 

“Promise, Daddy.”

He tucks her back into his chest, feeling as she shifts more comfortably against him, her body losing all tension as her nightmare is forgotten for now.

“I promise,” she says again, nearly completely asleep again. 

Sleep does not return as quickly for Ben, glancing up to let his eyes meet with his wife’s as she crouches beside the bed, her fingers lightly running through their sleeping daugther’s loose hair. 

“Will she be alright?” Rey asks, the nervous tilt to her voice that he recognizes from the moments that she most doubts that she’s cut out for motherhood.

He reaches out and laces their fingers together, kissing her fingers lightly. He knows exactly the anxiety, feels the terror of it everyday, so so afraid of screwing up the most precious thing that he has in the world. 

“She’s fine. It was just a nightmare. She probably won’t even remember it in the morning.”

Rey is still frowning. “Maybe I should just cut this short and come home.”

It’s tempting. “No, no, don’t rush, we’re ok.” He tries to be brave a moment longer, his daughters deep breathing against his neck. It doesn’t last long. “Unless you want to.”

“I would rather be home with you and Rhea than be anywhere else,” Rey responds quickly and without hesitation.

He smiles to himself, his wife’s words proving exactly what he’d just instilled in their daughter.

“Come home, then.”

Rey leans forward and kisses Rhea’s forehead first before kissing his lips, giving him a smile as she pulls back. 

“See you soon, then.” 

**Author's Note:**

> This story came to me last night and was bugging me to get written so here is my first real Reylo fic after being in the fandom for 5 years.  
> I didn't think it would happen, but yup, I have a Reylo post-canon family personal canon of non-Force-sensitive children and a school for ones who want to learn the ways of the Force free of affiliations. GAH.  
> Thanks to writingwife83 for helping polish it up!


End file.
